


The Channel Crossing

by lynndyre



Category: The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy
Genre: F/M, post-Eldorado
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21846010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: -never had Marguerite felt that sea-swelling of relief so sharply as when they pulled away from the harbor, and caught the receding tide.
Relationships: Marguerite Blakeney/Percy Blakeney
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Channel Crossing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Spacecadet72](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacecadet72/gifts).



In Le Portel with the dawn, Marguerite had half tripped from the carriage into Percy's arms but had only seconds to savor the contact before being shuttled on so deftly by the remaining League from the pier to the boat to the Day Dream. That same ship had been a god-sent haven before now, but never had Marguerite felt that sea-swelling of relief so sharply as when they pulled away from the harbor, and caught the receding tide.

Marguerite held her composure as the door was pulled shut behind her, until the footsteps in the hallway had moved away. As she breathed out, relief and surfeit of feeling spilled wet down her face, and she wiped her cheek with the heel of her glove- soiled now, and beyond keeping, but so then was all she wore, for every stitch and every particle of dust felt still trapped in that endless ride, hostage to Percy's conduct-- as judged by a madman with the full backing of the devil.

Now, in true privacy for the first time in days, Marguerite stripped her gloves at once, and set about making her toilette with a basin of heated water and fresh clothing from her own stores onboard, the lingering scent of ocean storage welcome after the days of close confining carriage and the stench of her own fear and worry mingled unpleasantly with that of her brother.

The great cabin of the Day Dream was outfitted as lavishly, as perfectly, as society would expect of the yacht of Sir Percival Blakeney, Bart., and Marguerite was glad of that excessive splendour now. The rich upholstery covered furniture designed for genuine comfort, and the wide bunk was scaled to allow man and wife to lie beside one another, even a man so hugely built as her husband.. From the stern window-seat Marguerite now stripped the heavy pillows, lining the bunk as the nest of some opulent animal, or the couch of a sultan.

When Percy finally knocked, courteous even where he was rightfully lord, and entered, he must have allowed himself to be valeted by one of his men, for he was as freshly scrubbed as Marguerite herself. His golden hair was damp but finally clean, and all trace of disguise had been wiped away. There were no words in that embrace, for the longest time, until Percy's breath against Marguerite's hair resolved itself into soft cherishing nonsense and she laughed into the open collar of his shirtfront and pressed her cheek to his skin.

Though scarce an hour had passed since dawn, both man and wife had spent too many unsleeping nights in the days preceding. Percy had made the best use he could of the long hours of travel, but that was a bandage only over the deeper wound of his seventeen days in captivity; while Marguerite had fretted and slept only fitfully through their journey. 

The tide was full in their favor, and the weather fair for the crossing back to Dover. There was no need for haste, not now the Dauphin was free, safe across the border. And the League, to a man, were safe away from French soil, with a breathing space before the next great need would call them forth.

Percy and Marguerite went to bed together while the full light of the morning sun filtered through the Day Dream's windows, curling about each other still clothed like tired children, with clutching hands that never released their grip.

Marguerite woke in the afternoon, the light just beginning to yellow at the edges of the room. The noises of a working ship, once utterly unfamiliar, had been a balm to her half-waking nerves; for they were utterly unlike any noise one might hear in Paris, or anywhere ashore. Percy slept still beside her. In his sleep he reached for her as tightly as in waking, pulling her close and half beneath him so that her bosom might indeed be his pillow, as he had so wished a scant handful of days before. 

A knock at the chamber door made Marguerite start upright, but Percy held her fast, stirring until those heavy lidded eyes began to flutter, to blink. Marguerite abandoned the urge to rise and cradled his head against her once more, stroking over his sleep-mussed hair until he subsided. The beat of her living heart beneath his ear and he quieted again, her arms around his shoulders cradling him against the motion of the ship and all the trespasses of the world alike.

Armand, her brother, spoke but a few words of enquiry, the beginning of an offer of late luncheon or early supper, before the doorway was broached again, and Sir Andrew actually stepped within to plant himself as a physical barrier between Armand and the bed. Margerite's hand tightened, small against the breadth of Percy's shoulder, and Percy mumbled an English reassurance against her neck.

Both men in the doorway froze, and Marguerite stroked her husband's hair until he slept once more, and glared with all the passion of an actress that they remove themselves as silently as possible. By the time she was certain Percy still slept, Sir Andrew had herded Armand back into the corridor. The door of the cabin was shut once more, and no single word of their conversation could be discerned, only the cadence of their voices.

But Marguerite shivered, and held Percy still closer to her body. Because she was not for nothing called the cleverest woman in Europe, and - just as he had once before, that night of Lord Grenville's ball when all the world had spun upon the head of a pin - Sir Andrew's loyalty to his friend and leader had given Marguerite all that she needed to glean the truth. And to glimpse the shape; the dark, sucking, shadow of her brother's sin.

Chauvelin, servant of the devil, with his 'either... or's, had reached too close, and Armand had proven too fallible. Marguerite pressed salt kisses into Percy's hair, for having saved him anyway. And for having saved himself, and them all.

In the dying sunlight, suspended between England and France, being in her husbands arms was like being wedded to a fallen star, burning righteous upon the earth. Her arms were cupped around a changeling, but one who had shown her his true face.

More than half the English Channel lay still ahead of them. And Marguerite guarded her husband while he slept.


End file.
